Freethought Librarianship

One of the most unique things we have at our CFI Libraries is our various freethought items.

From Wikipedia:

Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logic and not be compromised by emotion, authority, tradition, or any dogma. The cognitive application of freethought is known as freethinking, and practitioners of freethought are known as freethinkers.

(I shall discuss Wikipedia in a future blog, but suffice it to say that Wikipedia is usually a good starting point)

Anyway, we have a very good collection of these items, including some of the rarest, such as Ingersoll, Cohen, Joseph McCabe, Joseph Lewis, Bradlaugh, etc. A large portion of the rarest items have not yet been cataloged, but I am currently working on them.

There are very few of us out there any longer who maintain freethought collections, but University of Michigan at Ann Arbor has a "Social Protest" Collection, which is included within their scope, the American Atheists have some within their collection, and then we do. There are other places that have freethought as well, but these places have the largest and most well-known collections of these materials.